Syrian oil output shrinks 95 per cent

By IANS/RIA Novosti,

Moscow: Oil production in war-torn Syria has plummeted by 95 per cent since the conflict started in the country in the spring of 2011, the country’s Oil Minister Suleiman Abbas has said.

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“Crude oil production fell to 20,000 barrels a day compared with 380,000 bbl/d that Syria produced daily before mid-March 2011,” Abbas told a Syrian El Baas daily.

The minister blamed “the terror of (rebel) armed formations and an oil embargo on Syria” for slashing domestic crude oil output.

Syria’s natural gas output fell by half over the same period, he said.

According to UN estimates, at least 80,000 people have been killed in the conflict.